August 26, 2026 – Vancouver – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)

The 2026 Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) will feature five new works from the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), including two world premieres by Vancouver directors and three BC premieres by past festival favourites.

VIFF will host the world premieres of two NFB feature documentaries:

• Filipino-Canadian director Joella Cabalu’s First Comes Love: Nakabingwit, a rom-com doc that lingers after the meet-cute, when conversations about race, class and difference enter the picture;
• Kurdish-Canadian filmmaker Soran Mardookhi’s The Flight, which follows the lives of family members left behind as they relentlessly pursue truth, justice and accountability for their loved ones following the downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752.

Running October 1 to 11, VIFF will also present two more NFB feature documentaries, which made their world premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival:

• Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney by Montreal-based, Winnipeg-born Matthew Rankin;
• Still Night, Burning House (Metafilms/NFB/Portage Films) by Montreal-based, Vietnamese-Canadian filmmaker Carol Nguyen.

Joining the lineup following its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival is Piluk, an NFB animated short by Elisapie Isaac and Marc Séguin.

First Comes Love: Nakabingwit and Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney will also screen as part of VIFF’s Ignite High School Program, which welcomes hundreds of secondary students to experience exceptional cinema at the festival. Quick facts 

WORLD PREMIERES 

First Comes Love: Nakabingwit by Joella Cabalu (65 min) | NORTHERN LIGHTS
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/first-comes-love-nakabingwit 

• What if love isn’t the end of the story, but the start of a harder conversation? From whirlwind romance to raising mixed-race children, for three Filipina–white couples, love unfolds alongside harder conversations about race, belonging and what it takes to stay.
• Joella Cabalu is a Filipino-Canadian filmmaker whose award-winning work—including It Runs in the Family and Koto: The Last Service—examines intimacies, identities and relationships with a playful, nuanced approach to complex social dynamics. First Comes Love is her first feature documentary as writer-director. Her recent credits include directing the NFB GGPAA short film Crystal Pite: Wordless Language as well as producing Nisha Platzer’s Back Home, which was presented at VIFF 2022. 

The Flight by Soran Mardookhi (97 min) | SHOWCASE
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/the-flight

• On January 8, 2020, Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 departed Tehran carrying 176 passengers and crew members, including university students, newlywed couples and young children. Minutes after takeoff, the civilian aircraft was struck by two surface-to-air missiles, killing everyone on board. The Flight follows the lives of family members left behind in their relentless pursuit of truth, justice and accountability for their lost loved ones.
• Soran Mardookhi is a Kurdish-Canadian writer and director based in Port Moody, near Vancouver. He has worked on both international and Canadian projects, directing feature films, documentaries and television movies. Soran’s films explore themes of migration, displacement, identity and justice, often shaped by his own experience of exile. His previous work includes the narrative feature film Turbulence (VIFF 2014).

B.C. PREMIERES

Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney by Matthew Rankin (105 min) | SHOWCASE
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/ladies-and-gentlemen-brian-mulroney

• In 1976, Brian Mulroney launched a charm offensive the likes of which Canada had never seen, dismantling the political establishment one dad joke at a time. In this psychedelic doomscroll through the mind of a master politician, filmmaker Matthew Rankin charts the flamboyant rise of Canada’s 18th prime minister.
• Winnipeg-born director Matthew Rankin’s films have been acclaimed at festivals around the world. At VIFF, his feature The Twentieth Century screened in 2019, while Universal Language (2024) received the festival’s Summit Award for Best Canadian Film. His previous NFB work includes the award-winning 2017 experimental animated short The Tesla World Light.  

Still Night, Burning House by Carol Nguyen (76 min) | NORTHERN LIGHTS
Metafilms/NFB/Portage Films
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/still-night-burning-house

• In her deeply personal debut feature, award-winning filmmaker Carol Nguyen charts her family’s first reunion on a journey to Vietnam, where together they face long-unspoken questions about an uncle’s mysterious death.
• Carol Nguyen is a Montreal-based, Vietnamese-Canadian filmmaker whose films explore themes of cultural identity, family and silence. Still Night, Burning House is the follow-up and companion to her 2019 short No Crying at the Dinner Table, which was named to Canada’s Top Ten and presented at VIFF 2019. 

Piluk by Elisapie Isaac and Marc Séguin (10 min 30 s) | SHORT FORUM
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/piluk

• Born from a single feather, young Piluk walks on, just as her mother did before her. From the raw landscapes of the tundra to a city of concrete, will she still be able to hear the breath of the wind that witnessed her birth?
• World-renowned artists Elisapie Isaac and Marc Séguin have spent more than a decade cultivating a friendship rooted in freedom, creativity and a profound bond with the land. Isaac is an Inuk author, singer, songwriter, documentary filmmaker and activist from Salluit, Nunavik, who presented the West Coast premiere of her multimedia show Uvattini at VIFF Live in 2024. Séguin is a Quebec multidisciplinary artist whose work explores beauty, fragility and violence in the world.

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Press release – PDF here.

Version française ici.